


wait for the soft landing

by muguetmuse



Category: Gintama
Genre: F/M, Okita's a loser lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 16:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muguetmuse/pseuds/muguetmuse
Summary: 'The coolness of a beer he snatched from the downstairs counter condenses in his palms as he tilts it back, drinks. He kind of gets why Hijikata started smoking when their band left for Edo - he must have been plagued with her soft smiles and even softer giggles.Everything doesn’t feel as fine as it should. The last thing I want is to become as tragic as that moron, Okita thinks.He thinks too much: he even entertains the idea of being the one to wait like his sister once did.'orOkita can't work up the courage to talk to Kagura like a normal guy attracted to a girl.





	wait for the soft landing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr.

Their first date, if anyone could call it that, goes horribly.

“You brought me to the zoo just to fucking catch Zura?! I’m leaving, if I wanted to see an animal in heat, I’d watch Gin-chan land himself in the hospital just so he could flirt with the nurses.”

“Hear me out.” She quirks a brow and he feels her judgement. He makes a show of clearing his throat twice as he decides that he’s going to have to bury himself six feet under right after he blows up the biggest opportunity of his life. “Ahem. Why would I ever need to catch Katsura when you’re a catch yourself?”

She says nothing for awhile. She blinks. He stares back.

“If you weren’t such a sarcastic ass, I’d feel sorry for you.”

“Are you kidding? I rehearsed that for hours,” he deadpanned.

“Tell it to someone who cares!”

He taunts her to excavate her real thoughts. “What, did you think this was a date?”

“What’s so bad about wanting to hang out normally?! Ugh! Forget this and forget you!”

He scratches his neck. Well, fuck, he forgot women were sensitive.

 

-x-

 

Hijikata thinks he’s a bigger know-it-all than Okita, apparently, to be commenting on his supposed love life.

The invitation for all the Shinsengumi to show up at an international event is on the table and even though Hijikata and Kondo aren’t bringing dates, the conversation turns on its head when usually-background-character Yamazaki chimes in with his stupid but astute observation that “it seems like the captain and China would have fun if they went together.” 

So here they are, Hijikata killing himself on cigarettes because he’s a goddamn hypocrite but pretends he’s not the more he prattles on.

“Why can’t you go with her? I think you’d sooner stab an Amanto ambassador for the lols than refuse to bring the Yorozuya woman to play Uno there. Don’t you two get intense about that?

"She sucks,” Okita says lamely. But whenever she smiles at him like that, he sometimes wonders if he didn’t think the worst of her. He couldn’t help Amanto brainwashing.

“Okay, but so do you. Match made in heaven.”

“Your sarcasm is going to bite you in the ass one day when you sit on a toilet filled with piranahas.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you’d pull that off.”

“Aren’t you concerned for your life if China and I were in the same room without the Yorozuya boss keeping her on a leash?”

“At least you’d quit being an emo little shit and kid yourself that you finally asked her out, Sougo.”

“I’ve thought about it long and hard and I think smothering you with a pillow one night is the way to go–why wait?”

He doesn’t ask her out, and he isn’t sure whether it’s out of spite for Hijikata or out of his own cowardice.

But he’ll never admit that.

 

-x-

 

“Boss Lady said I was being thumbtack-less last time.”

“It’s ‘tactless’, China,” Okita corrects, knowing how pedantic he sounds. She even makes a face and he finds entertainment in the show of humility. A smirk forms. “But I accept your tsundere apology.“

She says nothing for a time too long for a motor mouth to handle, bites a small comment about being misinterpreted, the remark falling flat without her ire.

He thinks it even stranger how she grinds her heel deeper into the dirt like she expected it to fall through at any minute. Digging and digging like she’d arrive at China, the real origins for her knockoff, yato clothes.

There’s a point where she’s too shy and he can’t help, for the first time in his sadistic career, but to end her misery.

Okita prompts her. "What?”

As if reading his thoughts, she kicks up and the dirt blinds him. A grin so feral and spiteful he forgave her previous quietude, a look that didn’t suit her. It’s dusty and grainy in his mouth but his ears work too well because he hears a resounding click and closing of an umbrella.

“I won’t ever be sorry for you!”

And that could only mean war.

Love is blind, that he knows for sure, if he was this willing to entertain her shenanigans. All the dirt-kicking, loveless banter, and savage battles included.

Just in time, he barrel rolls out of the way as the world hails bullets.

 

-x-

 

It is foretelling, poetic, and yet arguably tawdry when the stars shine, glitter, and dazzle the exact night Okita wanders to what feels like the precipice of tomorrow.

For him to be there, mistakenly gambling away his evening literally and figuratively, But danna called and he answered. The self-employed man cashed in a favor over their phone call, insisting that his” sorry, taxrobbing ass” help him settle a slots machine dispute with a lurker.

He had to admit, finding danna participating in a screaming match with his reflection was the best returned favor he could ask for. Hands gripped the sides of the mirror and Gintoki threw his head back to headbutt the glass, Okita anticipating the broken, pained yell but leaning against the nearest stall, recording it all. Research purposes. Police evidence. Blackmail, whichever.

It’s not that he directly hurt the Yorozuya danna, it’s that he let him do it himself.

“You okay there, danna?” he asked, his intonation flat and lacking the depth only sympathy possessed.

He whirled around to peer at the voice’s general direction.“Took your ass long enough,” Gintoki grumbled. His throat cleared with a cough and his arm fumbled to find refuge in his kimono shirt with inebriated grace. “So I wanted to talk to you, unfortunately.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of reflecting yourself. You sure you need me for that?”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Gintoki didn’t appreciate the pun. “In fact, I took care of the lurker situation myself, thanks very much.”

Gintoki proudly showed off a pair of halved and broken sunglasses. Okita elected to say nothing.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Kagura.”

His blood froze. He exhaled and life continued to move on.

“You’re drunk and out to do me like you did him,” Okita said simply.

“Maybe,” he replied, shrugging, “but only if you don’t reply to her last letter.”

He saunters to the pachinko parlor rooftop, its metal bars boxing him in from falling over into the artificial rays of Kabukicho pink and gold. Below, a woman leans against a stumbling man, the pair of them guffawing loud.

His mind wanders to that cackle she heaves to her heart’s content whenever she outsmarts him when they spar. A deft punch to the side because he swung too wide was the battle he last remembered her trolling, rolling laughter.

The coolness of a beer he snatched from the downstairs counter condenses in his palms as he tilts it back, drinks. He kind of gets why Hijikata started smoking when their band left for Edo - he must have been plagued with her soft smiles and even softer giggles.

Everything doesn’t feel as fine as it should. The last thing I want is to become as tragic as that moron, Okita thinks.

He thinks too much: he even entertains the idea of being the one to wait like his sister once did.

 

-x-

 

He waited until she arrives back to say what he means, his many replies always cryptic and suggesting a bigger talk when she comes back.

But really, their talk is anything but all that serious.

The park is verdant with summer in full swing.

“I fought tons of freaks out there, but you’re the worst of them, so I’ve returned to Earth to finish the job.”

“Better get on with it before I fall asleep,” he says, but as soon as it leaves his mouth, she rolls him off the bench and starts jabbing him in the ribs–where it hurts–until he realizes what’s happening. With a hand that attempts to palm away the metal tip of her umbrella he growls, “Oi, oi, you were serious?!”

“You weren’t?!” She throws her umbrella to the side as she kneels to punch him instead, and before he knows it, they’re wrestling in a death grip.  “I bust my ass in space to earn my way back here and you want to nap?!”

“Correction. You bust your ass in space and bother coming back?”

“You know, at 22, you’re a thankless brat.”

“That depends on if you stay to fight me till the end.” He winces at the utter cheese of it all, but then again, nothing could be more banal or more right than any other ways to put it.

For the first time since she returned, her eyes flash, warning lights that promise more. Only this time, they’re not passing in the night alone. Cerulean is here to stay.

And so is he.

No running on both their parts.

He releases her and despite the perfectly good bench for them to sit on, she leans against it as she looks at the sky.

“Not that it had anything to do with you, for your information, that’s what I’m doing now and I don’t intend on going anywhere.” It’s fleeting, but Okita jerks a little at the assertion. She settles next to him properly, a peaceful distance in her eyes as she watches the kids play. Now fixated on the things directly around her. If she doesn’t start whacking her with her umbrella or punching him in the gut, he’d venture to say she was going insane.

Or different.

“Remember the day it sounded like i was apologizing for — and I mentally thought, ‘eat shit’ and kicked dirt in your mouth?”

He grumbles.

“There’s one thing I’m sorry for.”

“If you’re going to punch me in the throat and say, ‘sorry’ after, can you at least warn me?”

She legitimately laughs. “We both know I’d go straight for your stupid face.”

“Touché.” He shakes his head, fast, to cut in on whatever she plans on saying next. “China, don’t finish the thought–It’s too OOC for us.”

He’s a dirty liar and he owns it.

She stomps on his hand–for fuck’s sake, did she get stronger with less gravity out there?– and he swears bones are splinting. “Fine, you coward. Then I’m sorry for not being honest that actually, staying has something to do with you. Besides Shinpachi, and Gin-chan, and Anego, and Soyo–”

He drags her chattering mouth to kiss the palm of his hand. She swats it away.

“A coward huh?”

“Tail tucked between his legs and limping,” she beams at him.

So he does as his consciousness has always nagged him to do, what he’s always resisted against indulging. They meet and meld together awkward, unsettling at first. But the newfangled feel of her warm mouth against his amends the novel nugget of ‘something more’ in their lives.

Kagura punches him on the arm afterward, but can hardly conceal the same undulating laughter that tided him over in her absence, in his thoughts.

“Yeah, this is more like us,” she admits as fondly as she pulls him up to kiss him again.

He lets her, because everything about it feels right. Why wait?


End file.
